Personal Space Workshop - Guestbooks
Created | Updated Aug 24, 2003
Guestbooks can be used to make it easier for visitors to your space to leave you a message, and allow you to personalise your space a little further. There are two types of guestbook; a simple guestbook will start a new conversation each time it is used and an 'in reply to' guestbook will add to an existing thread. Here how to use the first type of guestbook is demonstrated, and then the modifications shown to make the other sort.
The Basics
First of all, you need to find the forum number for the page you want your guestbook to go. If you are a digibox user, you again will probably need assistance from a PC user, which you can do by leaving a message on this page. Otherwise, one way to find the forum number is to go to a thread on that page and look at the URL. At one part is a number preceeded by the letter F. This is the forum number.
For example, on this page is the thread Guestbook example. Load the thread and you'll see the URL reads
F135358, it is this number (not the 'F') that is needed to make the guestbook.
To open the guestbook, using the forum number for this page as an example, is..
<GUESTBOOK FORUM="135358">Now we can choose a subject heading, by adding SUBJECT to this tag. For the example, "Guestbook" is chosen, so now the tag looks like this...
<GUESTBOOK FORUM="135358" SUBJECT=" Guestbook">You can specify how big you want the guestbook to be by adding COLS (collumns) and ROWS to the tag, saying how many you would like to use. The example has 50 coloumns and 5 rows...
<GUESTBOOK FORUM="135358" SUBJECT="Guestbook" COLS="50" ROWS="5">You can also add text to the 'send' button, by adding BUTTON to the tag. For the example, the text 'click here' is chosen, making the opening tag now look like this..
<GUESTBOOK FORUM="135358" SUBJECT="Guestbook" COLS="50" ROWS="5" BUTTON="click here">Now, add the closing tag of
</GUESTBOOK>We have a guestbook that looks like this...
Centralising
This is a simple matter of writing <CENTER> before your opening tag, and </CENTER> after your closing tag. The result looks like this...
To double check, the code for this example is
<CENTER>
<GUESTBOOK FORUM="135358" SUBJECT="Guestbook" COLS="50" ROWS="5" BUTTON="click here">
</GUESTBOOK>
</CENTER>
Adding text
If you would like your guestbook to already have some text written on it, then simply write what you want between the opening and closing GUSTBOOK tags. For this example, the text "Write here" is used, and the code for the uncentralised guestbook...
Write hereAgain to check, the code for thi example is
<GUESTBOOK FORUM="135358" SUBJECT="Guestbook" COLS="50" ROWS="5" BUTTON="click here">
Write here
</GUESTBOOK>
The 'In Reply To' Guestbook
To write an in reply to guestbook, first you must start the thread which you would like the guestbook to respond to.
The code for this type is almost exactly the same, except that instead of writing FORUM="...and then the forum number...", you need write INREPLYT0="...and then the posting number...". Again, if you are a digibox user, your may not be able to find the posting number. Otherwise, go to the thread that you have started, and press 'reply'. On the URL, part of it should read "inreplyto=" followed by a number. This is the posting number.
For example, go to the thread Guestbook example and click reply. Part of the URL reads inreplyto=3921099, so the posting number is 3921099. Substituting this into the guestbook gives the code..
<GUESTBOOK INREPLYTO="3921099" SUBJECT="Guestbook" COLS="50" ROWS="5" BUTTON="click here">
Write here
</GUESTBOOK>
Giving the following result...
Write hereBack to the Personal Space Workshop